


tell me if i am an orpheus

by justwhatialwayswanted



Series: poetries [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Depression, Free Verse, Other, Poetry, i'm used to posting things on ao3 i guess?? so here it goes, things i wrote in one night during the pandemic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:40:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25722976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/justwhatialwayswanted
Summary: this is not a problem of love. but i have a hard time believing it can be anything else.written when i didn't want to sleep.
Series: poetries [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1891321
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	tell me if i am an orpheus

1.

when your soul rips itself out to write poetry,

heart splitting at the seams that weren't there before, 

clamoring for something true, like it's the only language of loss 

and you must set words on the page— 

not a story, never a story, 

because a story cloaks everything in narratives and characters and symbols 

and can pierce if you see yourself in it but 

how can you write something to touch your own soul?

  
  


2.

what does it mean for me if i long to call an old love, 

to tell her something i learned about something we discussed long ago

and how do i tell her, don't worry. i don't love you anymore.

and how do i tell her that when it's deafeningly true? 

it's easier not to love someone if you love them, 

if you never used to love them— 

but you can't spit out those words without sounding like an attack 

when you meant a reassurance.

and what does it mean for me if my first love isn't who i thought it was, 

and how can i lose him twice? how do i do that? 

how do i lose, love him twice when the second time i was never even sure i found him 

but i think of myself burying my face in his shoulder and feeling home 

and i never felt that way the first time, is it more real now? or less? 

if i tuck my face in at his neck the way i want to i can't see his face, 

i can never see his face, 

and what does it mean for me?

awkward hellos because i don't know how to control my i love you's, 

to make them blindingly bright without ever saying those words, 

to offer not a shadow of a doubt when i say this made me think of you. 

to have her never hear an _i love you_ that isn't there, but friendly affection— 

don't switch your shampoo so often, i want to tell her, it doesn't help. 

look. i know what to do. let me help you. i will help you, 

and i know your new love's name and her face and i do not resent her 

but i wonder at you, new love, new lover, when i haven't been able to find you. 

can i only muster up old love, or new love for old lovers, 

and what does it mean for me if that's all i can do? 

who will be my new love? 

and how do i tell him i love him when it hurt the first time? 

how do i say i am your love and let myself believe it? 

how do i forgive myself for doing the right thing and how do i forget myself, 

how do i forget who i was? why would i want to?

who will be my new love, because my old loves have their own, 

and i want to touch him but not to take, 

and taking is all i can imagine when i see his name in lights. 

but i can't, because of me, and because of him too.

and can i write myself a new love? 

can i fall in love with words on a page my heart demanded i write?

no. i don't think so.

but it's a lovely thought, poetry and me and love 

and new seams on my heart of words woven into threads and home in my own chest. 

and god, i want to try.

  
  


3.

what do i do with a poem? 

what do i do when i want to be known— but no, not like that. 

i would rather be known by strangers than by friends, 

feel safer knowing they will read and see themselves in it 

and not see me, invisible but aching for the world to see 

and hoping it is the right kind of seeing. 

i don't know what to do with poetry except write it. 

how do i say look, this is what i have done, where and when do i say it? 

i know this is poetry because there is nothing else it can be. 

i know there is nothing else it can be. i know, i know, i know.

and i dream of other people reading my words 

and feeling that somehow i have seen them deeper than they see themselves. 

i can make myself an ancient glass case with a mirror in the back.

i want to be known but only by those who do not know me. 

i could be anyone. 

let me be anyone.

  
  


4.

how do i move through life like i'm not a drop of oil in a bowl of water. 

how do i feel found if i can't convince myself i was lost, 

or if i was, it was long enough ago that maybe it is all i have ever been

when i look at my home i think of how well i belong here and how i wish i didn't

  
  


5.

why would i look at a poem i have already written. 

i don't need it anymore.

if i write small enough will it take away my letters 

and strip my words down to what i want them to say?

who can write poetry deliberately? 

who can sit down and think, i will write. 

who can turn the tap and control the faucet.

  
  


6.

i wonder if i have found a new home in a too-fine pen and a notebook, 

a gift from a friend i didn't have for very long. 

is my worth in my words? how do i know if it's not? 

my words, worth, wordsworth, 

and the names of poets are on my tongue but the only poetry i can recall is my own.

why can i never seem to make myself a place in my own heart? 

why must i look for it only in others'? 

if i talk about it enough will it change? do i want it to?

i do but i don't. 

i feel a mystery. i feel romantic and unknowable 

and i want someone to know me because of it, 

to see me without my having to reveal myself.

and what does it mean if i hope someone reads the first drafts?

how long can i write about poetry before i run out of things to say? 

i always loved the ones that rhyme 

and yet i find myself pouring out the ghosts of words that have not been said, 

and they do not fit together. 

there is no rhyme. there is no meter. 

do we naturally speak in iambs or did we choose them?

will someone read my poems? will someone find a rhyme here? 

tell me if i am an orpheus.

  
  


7.

writing words is like instructions for when they will be spoken. 

i cannot fathom keeping words, once put on a page, secret from the strange faces and hearts and minds of the world.

and yet i cannot speak my words. i cannot face the possibility of anyone in the audience knowing my name. my name is not who i am. i do not want to be attached to this.

  
  


8.

and i wonder why i need to run so desperately when i am always happier running in place. i need parameters. 

maybe i would feel better if i could stretch my leg over my head, see if i can ground myself in the sky

in six feet tall because i will never be.

  
  


9.

i look around my room and i see a life i lived but it feels so foreign— books with bright covers and hand me downs and a tissue box next to my bed for when tears make it hard to sleep. but i have only ever known this infinite/indefinite moment. 

perhaps writing can make me anew, but can it make me complete? can it help me stand on my own?

do i write words with a pen because i bite my tongue when i think of them? when it hurts to swallow, can i use that pain? can i use my pain? why would i? 

(but if i do, the part of me that never left my parents' home whispers that it will be better.)

this pen feels familiar in my hands and i taste success on my bitten tongue but i don't know if i can swallow it. do i even remember how? who taught me?

maybe if i could never stand on my own i would be able to do it by now. maybe i've been tired since fourth grade when everything was okay. half a lifetime ago by now, and more and more and more, and i would not want to go back but i wish i could. 

now my head is full of names of poets and medications and it has all pushed out something very, very important and i don't know what

  
  


10.

i've started and now i can't stop, i don't want to and i don't know how. 

if i number these pages will i ever be able to forget them? what does page 48 have in store for me? will i be able to control it or will page 48 be found tonight? 

page 5. i should be sleeping now. i think i will, but if i walk away, who knows what i will find? 

i know i can't let myself lose things. i can only forget them when i've written them down. the muscle memory takes them from my brain, rest now, i've got this. 

i used to play sonatas. not very well. but i played them. 

and then i stopped 

and now i want to feel that powerful again and will that happen to my poems? can i play a poem like i would a sonatina?

  
  


11.

i have to write poetry because i cannot be honest with myself any other way.

and if i write for me, will anyone care, and i hope to god they will. 

if i write for me will others want to see it, will they want to know? 

is it a car crash or a photo album? i won't know until it's over.

and i write words to share them but i look at my messy writing, 

my missing letters and tiny hand 

and wonder if i make it harder for myself. 

would sharing them feel the same way otherwise?

  
  


12.

and i think my favorite word is and and my favorite sentence is a question because they are neotonal to me, hammer out their names until they are home, the center of a chaotic universe that needed something to cling to. can i cling to myself? do i want to? what do i want to want?

  
  


13.

and i feel like i could fill this notebook tonight with thoughts that have not left my brain in five years but those five years have taught me to be wary of that feeling. 

i cannot embrace creation at a cost and what will that cost be? a sick feeling, nausea for hours, turning the light back on at midnight because there is nothing else you can do, feeling the burning of a shoulder that has protested something vague and shadowy for days. 

how can i create when it invites death? how can i not? because if i didn't have to be afraid of falling i could make myself a queen.

i wish suffering did not feel so boring and i worry that i wish such a thing because don't i know how hard other people have it? don't i know how lucky i am? i have the luxury of boredom and it will kill me. god. i don't want to die from a concept.

but i know how it is to feel sick and i think, maybe i won't. and it tastes like earth-shattering relief, or the promise of it, anyway.

but i must be suspicious of my own happiness

  
  


14.

i write for seconds that are minutes and hear music of noises and think it would be so romantic if i could stay here. 

can i stay here? 

an infinite moment of waiting, of staying up, not very late but later than i should, giving voice to poems i didn't know i was waiting to say.

and i need to go but i don't want to because four pages of tiny handwritten poetry are the most want i have felt in months and i worry if i discard it, will i ever find it again? will it ever find me again? 

can i strap a beacon to my chest and hope my love comes to find me? what beacon could possibly be bright enough? or loud? must it be loud? and why must my love always find me when i'm supposed to be asleep?

  
  


15.

is this an epic yet? four pages and counting, an ode to my feeling that i don't know where i am or how to retrieve myself. 

and i wonder if, tonight, i will be able to sleep. what if i can't, what do i do then?

and i can only sleep with the lights on because it's the only way i can read my own writing. when will i have more? i can never know.

if i write enough will i stop feeling like i need to scream? someone needs to tell me. i trust myself about everything except myself. 

and tell me, tell me, am i a poet? when looking at pages full of writing makes me feel so worn, how can i be anything else?

are my words beautiful? they are to me. i wish that was enough.

  
  


16.

and i know so much about how to breathe that i fear i will never feel breathless again

  
  


17.

the irony is, this notebook is not me. and yet its contents are. bathroom mirrors too late at night make me remember words humming under my skin. maybe the hydrocortisone in the cabinet will fix it. do i sound desperate?

my mouth tastes sugary with medicine that doesn't do enough and another day is over, or maybe it isn't. maybe i'm supposed to hate the taste of chemical blackberries by now but it tastes like hope that is only a little faded. and these pages filled with writing look like hope. a future. and i want some of that hope to turn into certainty that i will be okay, that these words will not scrabble at a cliff face. or if they do, it will be purposeful.

what if tomorrow i wake up and i feel alright? i would be more scared than ever. the sword is hanging over my head poised to drop. how do i feel completely alright without feeling like i've lost something? my own suffering has existed so long i have grown around it and don't know how to get it out. it was grafted on long ago. when does it end and where do i begin? i want to feel alright. i don't want to lose.

this is not a problem of love. but i have a hard time believing it can be anything else.

  
  


18.

you don't want to read this, i would tell my mother. it's mundane in how sad it is. i don't want you to know. your eyes would hurt from deciphering my handwriting. and there will always be more.

  
  


19.

no, i've never been a suicide risk. the idea of enduring physical pain turns my stomach. i could not inflict that even if i wanted to— 

too much effort. i don't want anything enough for that much effort, except i feel compelled to keep writing. maybe if i do it for long enough, the next time someone asks how i am, i'll be good.

  
  


20.

it occurs to me that temptation is not always about things that are bad for me and that i cannot do anything by halves. 

i make myself a new name whenever i set a new pen to new paper and those names build up and build up and i don't know if there is a tipping point. what will happen when it arrives?

how do i trust that someone wants to see what i have created when i want so badly for it to be true?

does typing words feel the same as writing them? how can it? how can it not?

  
  


21.

will the ink of this pen outlast the pages of this notebook? what do i do with thoughts i have no space for? i have no choice but to let them dissolve and yet i had hoped to set them to music. god, if only music was like poetry. in poetry i cannot even imagine perfection. in music i know too much to think of anything else.

  
  


22.

i can taste the name of a poet and i know it is a poet because i have made this name for myself. if i name all the parts of myself, can i separate them? look, here is fear. i've named her.

when will i know i can stop hiding my fear? who will tell me? how will i know to believe them?

  
  


23.

i wonder how these words make anyone else feel because they make me feel nothing at all. they are the best way i can describe my own feelings. how long will i keep going like this?

  
  


24.

when can i talk about my misfortune without being greeted with pity? is this profound and tragic enough yet?

  
  


25.

if strangers will consent to know me, will i stop needing old loves to give me memories?

i don't know how to accept anything less.

**Author's Note:**

> if you've made it to the end wow!! thank you!! i don't really expect anyone to read this but i needed a place to put it so i could feel some sense of completion, so here it is.
> 
> i wrote this after about a month of sheltering in place, and it's been about five months now. i've been sitting on it since then, wondering what to do with it, so thank you ao3! and thank you for reading this <3
> 
> edit: i have a poetry blog on tumblr now! if you're interested in some of my shorter stuff, check out @justwhatialwayswanted-poetries for poems roughly every friday!!


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